A ‘hybridizer’s garden’ welcoming visitors, but please call or e-mail first. No smoking in garden, please (allergies). Peak bloom is June 30 – July 15, with earlies blooming from the end of May.

We live, garden, and hybridize daylilies within the city of Allentown. Our yard (slightly over ¼ acre) holds about 250 named cultivars, 250 seedlings selected for observation, and 4000 unselected seedlings. We are Zone 6b and over-winter our daylilies without mulch. The garden has always been rust free.

We grow primarily early blooming tetraploids, large flowered edged and variegated-eyed tetraploids, and variegated-eyed and metallic-eyed small diploids. We emphasize extended bloom -- folks with day jobs should come home to daylilies which are still fresh and attractive. We don’t seek out doubles or spiders (one can only fit so much on a small property!) though we sometimes have some pop up in the hybridizing.

Our registered cultivars are sold through Pete Misiaszek of Manatwany Creek Farm. Pictures of most previous introductions are on these websites:

Metallic-Eyed Small Diploids

Some of Megan’s dips have clear lavender eyezones that change color or intensity depending on your view angle. In certain light, they have iridescence unusual in any type of flower. This trait is also emerging in the tet programs of several other hybridizers. Because it resembles art printed on etched aluminum, we have called this trait “metallic”.

Unlike slate/blue/lavender colors in eyes and pink/melon or lavender/pink shades in petals, the metallic trait doesn’t seem to be temperature related.

The trait is very difficult to photograph, since you can rarely see it from the head-on perspective, and the light source has to be from the front, but usually has to be at a different angle from the camera lens. One way you can recognize the trait in a photo is to look at the same segment of an eye on different petals. If it is pale on some and dark on others, it probably looks metallic when seen in person.

Our first metallic-eyed seedling was SHINING EYES, which Megan registered in 1999. Its image is at http://pages.prodigy.net/pmisiaszek/newpage1.htm

D917 (ENCHANTER’S SPELL x BABY BLUES) X (JANICE BROWN x BABY BLUES] about 3 ½”, dormant, nocturnal, extended, fertile both ways. In our first metallic-eyed seedling which doesn’t come from the SHINING EYES line, it is clear that the iridescent trait is there. However, the underlying eye colors are unstable to ultraviolet. These two images, both with accurate color, show the same bloom at 7:45 and 10:30. Once changed at 10:30 AM, the colors and flower texture stayed the exactly the same until after 7 PM.

D917

D930 (SHINING EYES X CALIFORNIA BLUES) about 3.5”, midseason, fertile both ways. This is the most attractive, though not the most metallic, of several seedlings from the (SE x CB) cross.